


Fists

by SomewhereApart



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Child Abuse, F/M, Leopold is a fucker, Missing Year (Once Upon a Time), Nightmares, Regina's mind is a fucked up place, Tumblr Prompt, Zelena's not so great in this one either tbh, mentions of marital rape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-24
Updated: 2018-01-24
Packaged: 2019-03-08 21:42:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13467141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SomewhereApart/pseuds/SomewhereApart
Summary: Regina's no stranger to nightmares; can Robin handle being the one to wake her?





	Fists

**Author's Note:**

> From a tumblr prompt meme: OQ + "Shit, are you bleeding?!" :)

Cora always said Regina had a vivid imagination, that the things her brain cooked up were beyond the telling. She said this particularly on the nights when her father would rush to her room, drawn there by the blood-curdling screams of his only daughter, shaking her awake and dodging her small, swinging fists as she was pulled out of whatever terrible nightmare she’d been clutched in. 

“It’s that imagination of hers,” Cora would sigh, clucking her tongue, standing in the doorway of Regina’s bedroom, in her nightdress with her long hair down and her face bare. 

Henry would rush to the bed, would coddle and soothe, and draw his fingers through Regina’s sweaty curls, would murmur soft words until her eyes weren’t quite so wild, until she stopped babbling about being trapped, about the fire, about monsters, about clutching hands in the dark, pulling her down, drowning her in the river, chasing her until her legs gave out and then swallowing her whole.

“Honestly, Regina, you have to stop reading those frightful books before bed,” Cora would huff, “A proper young lady is much more suited to stories of romance and legend.”

What nobody said, what nobody would, was that the night terrors happened most often after days when Cora had been particularly cruel in her discipline. What Regina never said was that the day Cora had bound her with tight, shimmering magic to the chair in the study until she had memorized the entirety of Miss Malorac’s Guidelines for the Etiquette of Noblewomen, the day she went without lunch, or tea, or supper, or a drop to drink until she could recite social graces by heart (lest she forget, again, and embarrass her mother, again), was the night that she dreamed she was still strapped to that chair, bound by magic she could not free herself from as a candle tipped over and lit the curtains, the drapes, the pages of every book until the room was an inferno, flames licking at her skin, she was going to burn alive, here in this room, forgotten. Mother had left her here and she would cook to the marrow, her skin would roast and bubble, her flesh would melt off the bone, she was going to die here, trapped. She’d clawed gashes into her father’s arms when he woke her. Had shrieked and scrabbled at his hands when he’d tried to light a candle to chase away the darkness.

The day Cora had struck her open palms with a thin rule, over and over until they were red and smarting, a lesson in not sneaking tea cakes to the kitchen help, in not giving charity to those too weak to help themselves, she’d dreamed that her stinging hands had cracked open, the red welts splitting until they oozed and bled, until she could see sinew and bone, then they’d crumbled away and she’d been defenseless, her arms ending in useless stumps, and she’d been running, running, been chased and pursued and her balance had been off, she’d been clumsy and she came to a cliff, the base of a tall ravine, woven through with roots and vines. She could climb and save herself, she knew if she could climb, she could make it out alive, but her hands were broken and gone, no fingers left to grasp with and she cowered against the rocks and dirt and awaited certain death. She’d thrown punches at Henry that night when he pulled her free of her dreams, had clocked him hard in the cheek and he’d worn her bruise for a week.

When Cora had taken her voice as punishment for her smart mouth, had left her silent for four whole days and asked question after question that she could not answer, Regina had dreamed she was drowning in the river, her father standing on the shore. His back was to her, he was searching the hillside, but she was here, just behind him, not even that far away, bobbing in and out of the water, clinging desperately to the brach of a fallen log and shouting, shouting for him, “Father! Daddy! Save me! Please! I’m right here!” but she’d had no voice, no words, and the current had ripped at her, her fingers slippy on the smooth wood, and she’d been pulled under, pulled down, the river up her nose and in her lungs. She’d wondered how her father had known that night, how he’d known to come to her when she had no voice, and then she’d realized that she was screaming, still, _screeching like a barn owl_ , her mother huffed, but Regina’s voice was back. She’d gripped her father’s collar in her fists, curled against his chest, wringing her hands anxiously, wrenching at him until he’d grimaced and murmured she’d choke him if she didn’t let up.

It wasn’t always Cora. The night she’d lain with Leopold for the first time - had grit her teeth while he had sweated and grunted on top of her, tried his best to be gentle but the effort was useless for a girl bone-dry and drenched in grief - she had dreamed she was naked in a dark room, hands all over her body. Strange hands groping and pulling, finding her private places and Daniel had been calling to her from the dark, he was trying to find her, to save her, but he couldn’t orient himself, and then a heavy hand had fallen over her mouth, had kept her from crying out, had kept her from calling for him. She’d woken with a start, sweat-drenched with tears on her face, in a strange, vast room in a strange, vast castle. No father to wake her, then, nobody for her to injure in her terror. She’d drawn herself a bath, uncaring that it was cold, and scrubbed at her skin, shivering and sobbing.

Cora had always said the nightmares were a mark of weakness. A wild imagination and a weak heart, and Regina had supposed, eventually, that she must have been right. They’d faded as she’d grown stronger - as she’d grown darker. As the world around her fell to her control. Then, when she dreamt of death and terror, it was at her own hand, her own powerful, capable hands. She was the one who wielded magic now, who conjured fire, and it never failed her in the night. 

But she is weak, now. Back in this castle, with the unCharmings, and the stragglers of Storybrooke, and without her precious baby boy, she is weak. And so she dreams again. Horrible dreams, and so many of Henry. Tonight, he is screaming, standing at the castle parapet, with a winged monkey gripping either arm and Zelena stands beyond him, cackling.

“I found him for you, sis,” she taunts, “I brought him here for you.”

And Henry has no memory of her, hollers, “Who are you?!” and “Where’s my mom?!” and “Let me go!” He is terrified, her sweet baby boy, and Regina cannot move. She is trapped against the opposite wall, encased in stone, her magic does not come.

“Let him go!” Regina pleads with that green bitch, “He’s innocent, he’s done nothing!” She is desperate, she writhes against the stone, scratches ineffectually until her fingers bleed, until her shoulders ache from the impact of her futile thrashing.

“Nothing is innocent,” Zelena sneers, a lesson Regina was taught long ago by her now-dead mentor.

But it is not true, it’s not, because, “Henry is! Please! Not my son!”

“I told you,” her sister says, with a sadistic glee Regina knows all too well, “I would take everything you had.”

And then the monkeys tighten their grip and take flight and Henry is screaming and screaming in their sharp, piercing grasp. And then they let go, and it is Regina screaming, an inhuman wail as her sweet baby boy plummets to the stone courtyard below and Zelena cackles merrily. 

She is not sure what frees her, at first. Thinks maybe her magic has finally come, too late, but she is striking out, breathing heavily and her knuckles find flesh and bone with a sickening crunch. She hears it, then, the voice, the  _oof!_ and then the ripe curses, his accent not so lilting as it bites through his pain. It’s only then that her brain clears, that she realizes she is no longer on the parapet, but in her own bed, sheets twisted around her legs, her arms, her nightdress nearly soaked through with sweat and her throat raw from screaming. There had been hands on her, she thinks there had been hands on her, and with a wave of her fingers, the lantern at her beside comes to life (a bit more flame than necessary, but she’s keyed up and frightened, her control not what it should be). He’s there - the thief. Clutching his nose with his eyes squeezed shut. She’d struck him, and struck him well.

“R-Robin?” she manages, her breath hitching horribly and — is she crying? She’s still crying. Those blue eyes crack open and look at her with rather less disdain that they probably should considering she’s just punched him in the face. There’s red creeping between his fingers, and her stomach, already in knots, sinks down to the floor and beyond. “Shit - are you b-bleeding?!” she demands, and her voice does not sound like her own. She is dizzy, the room is spinning.

Robin’s hand falls away from his nose, and he is not bleeding, he is  _gushing_ , she has broken it for sure and she reaches for him, magic sparking at her fingertips, but he backs away, shakes his head.

“Beg pardon, Your Majesty,” he says, this voice thick with pain and blood and swollen sinuses, “but I’d rather you wait until you’ve calmed.”

“I’m c-calm!” she insists, and she thinks if he was not in so much pain, he’d probably laugh at her. She is not calm, she is wild, she is still terrified, she is still crying, cannot stop. Her words come out as broken sobs, and her hands are wracked with tremors. 

He is the one bleeding, he is the one injured, but he is the one who reaches for her, settles his hands on her shoulders now that she is more herself, leaves a bloody palm print on the white of her nightgown and urges, “Breathe, Regina. You’re not breathing.”

“You’re bl-bleeding,” she manages, and he squeezes his hands gently against her.

“I’ve had worse.”

Still, she manages to conjure up a kerchief, and it flutters like a sail as her shaking fingers pass it to him. He takes it in his bloody hand, presses it gingerly to his nose in an attempt to staunch the flow.

“Why a-are you h-here?” In her bedchambers. In the middle of the night. In a tunic and his leathers - he’s not dressed to be out and about.

“I couldn’t sleep, thought I’d walk a bit to clear my head. I heard you screaming.”

“Nobod-dy walks these h-halls,” she argues, her voice a high, tight whine against her cries. It’s true - she’s insisted she does not need sentries, she does not need guarding. She wants to be alone, to grieve in private, and there are no men stationed near her hall. Nobody walks here.

“I do,” he tells her. “I must admit, Your Majesty, that I wander past your rooms from time to time. Just to assure myself that you’ve not gone in search of that endless middle again.”

“How-w would you kn-know the diff-rence?” she asks, arching a brow even through her tears. “If you’re sp-pying on me in m-my sleep?”

The revelation is not a welcome one - that he has let himself into her rooms at night, spied upon her as she lay sleeping, dreaming. She thinks of the many nights she has simply lain here and cried until the sun crested the horizon, masking her puffy eyes with magic in the morning and hoping nobody would be the wiser. Was he there, then? Had he listened to her weep?

“You’re a restless sleeper. Surely a sleeping curse wouldn’t have you thrashing and hollering like a banshee.”

“It was j-just a d-dream,” she whispers, almost to herself, her knees curling up between them now, hands sliding into her sweaty hair and gripping.

“Quite a frightful one,” he deduces, and she wonders what sort of misery his body has been subjected to if he can speak so calmly while his blood seeps into her kerchief and dyes it scarlet. Regina only nods - she’s beginning to come down, can feel it, the heaviness overtaking the anxiety. Her sobs begin to calm. “Your boy?” he asks, and she scowls, nods once. “And the witch?”

Her brow furrows deeply, and she works to keep her voice steady as she asks, “How do you know that?”

“You were shouting,” he reminds. “Quite vividly.”

Tears are still slipping down her cheeks, and she realizes with a flush of mortification that she is snotty. She looks away from him, produces a kerchief for herself as well and wipes at her cheeks, her nose. God, she must look a fright - she’ll never be able to look him in the eye again. Not now that he’s seen her so undone - in her bedclothes, sobbing, with tangled hair and wild eyes. And yet he’s still looking at her, kindly, tenderly, and his hand falls to her knee over the covers.

“He’s safe in that other realm,” Robin tells her gently. “If you cannot reach him there, then neither can she.”

Regina nods, wipes uselessly at her tears only to have more follow. She cannot stem the tide. Her throat tightens, closes, for as safe as Henry is in New York, he is gone forever, lost to her, she will never see him again and she is in no state to battle back her grief tonight. Her voice is little more than a croak when she says, “I  _need_ him,” and then her face crumples into tears.

And this man, this annoying, persistent, bleeding man, the one who she so despises by day, reaches for her, draws her in against his chest. Regina goes like a rag doll, lies against him and weeps.  He runs his free hand up and down her back, soothing her, murmuring soft words in his stopped up voice. She shouldn’t do this, this is weakness. The dreams are weakness. Letting him soothe her is weakness.

But in the dark of night, in this castle that has always been more prison than home, she feels weak, and so she gives in. Regina cries herself dry, cries until her throat aches, cries until her body is too exhausted to cry any longer, and she slips into sleep against him.

She does not dream.

When she wakes in the morning, he is gone, the only sign of his midnight visit the blood-soaked kerchief on her night table, the bloody smears on her dress, the droplets that fell on her bedding. He is there at breakfast, with deep purple bruising under his eyes and a swollen nose.

She pulls him into an empty room just after morning meal and heals him, and neither speaks of that night ever again.


End file.
